


The Way Back

by emeraldine087



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Friendship, Character Death Fix, Don't copy to another site, Endgame version of Time Travel, Fix-It, Forgiveness, Gen, If Avengers: Endgame Had a Post-Credit Scene, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Reconciliation, Rules of Time Travel, Second Chances, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Author needs to be happy, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark-centric, With some extras from the author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-10 02:38:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18929602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldine087/pseuds/emeraldine087
Summary: What if there's a way for Morgan Stark to get the father who was stolen from her back? What if Peter Parker doesn't have to lose another father-figure? What if Bucky Barnes can finally be exonerated by the person whose forgiveness he thought was lost to him forever? What if there's a way for Tony Stark to live the quiet family life that was abruptly taken from him?In the aftermath of the Decimation's reversal and Tony Stark's sacrifice, friendships will be mended; families, reunited; apologies, asked and accepted; relationships, reaffirmed; and wrongs will be righted...Because while it's true that not everyone gets a happy ending, things have a way of coming around to make sure that those who'd sacrificed their own happy ending for others to get theirs will get the life they've only dreamed of but never thought they deserved.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> So... I'm so depressed over Tony's fate in EG that I thought I'd write for a bit of catharsis. Not that I particularly hate how it ended, but I thought Tony deserved more than a hero's end. I thought Morgan deserved better; I thought Bucky deserved better; I thought Peter deserved better. Hence, this little work.
> 
>  **If you haven't seen AVENGERS: ENDGAME (EG) yet or you don't want to be reminded of the pain and tears that movie might have caused, then feel free to click the BACK button** , but to reassure you, this will be fluffy and happy and sappy for my own sanity to recover. There will probably be a bit of angst but nothing that the fluff cannot overpower. ^_^
> 
> Comments and ConCrit are welcome; discussions--philosophical or otherwise--are encouraged. Before anything, though, this Fix-It Fic will follow the following  
>   
> FIVE RULES OF TIME TRAVEL:
> 
> 1) What happened has already happened and couldn't have happened (or will not happen) any other way whether a person from the present travels to the past or a person from the past is taken to the future;  
> 2) Time Travel is only possible through the Quantum Realm (QR) with the use of Pym Particles and, to navigate it, through the use of the time-space GPS that Tony Stark invented and engineered;  
> 3) A person cannot time jump to a time that hasn't been mapped in the QR yet. So a person from the past can only time jump to the future if they are shown/guided there;  
> 4) What is taken from one point of the timestream to another must be restored, not because they can change events in the timestream but because such anomalies create instability in the timestream, opening it and the resulting alternate reality (created from taking something from the timestream) to existential and catastrophic threats; and  
> 5) A person's death takes him out of the timestream, therefore a person who travels to a time when they're no longer alive will stay the same age as when they left the timestream.
> 
> So if you're ready, here we go...  
> \---

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever did Steve do with the two extra vials he took from 1970?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is Steve-centric but the rest will focus on Tony. ^_^  
> \---

Steve Rogers roamed his old, wizened gaze around the lake and the surrounding grove. For a moment there, he’d almost forgotten how beautiful the rolling hills and the lake flanking the Avengers compound were. His eyes had seen their fair share of both ugliness and beauty, grief and bliss, hatred and love. He was overjoyed that despite all that he had seen in his long and often trying life, he had found his way back as he promised his friends and himself that he would.

Steve had succeeded, returning the Infinity Stones to the moment in the timestream when they were taken. He had done that and then some. He didn’t have any regrets anymore.

Save for _one_.

But Steve was hoping that it would all work out, that his request was heard.

That if Steve Rogers had found his way back home, he wasn’t going to be the only one.

“You wanna tell me about her?” Sam Wilson asked, nodding towards the simple band on Steve’s ring finger that, like Sam’s mischievous and curious dark eyes, twinkled in the late morning sun.

Did he want to tell his friend about the journey he had ended up taking after returning the Stones to when and where they belonged? It felt like a dream, and maybe it was, seeing as the science of it all didn’t allow him to change anything that had already happened. But the feel of her hand in his, the taste of her lips against his, the pain of having found her only to lose her to nature, and the bittersweet joy warming his heart right now were as real as they come.

Screw science. The time he’d spent with her was real; s _he was real_ , and he didn’t need to tell people about her as affirmation that she was. Smiling as if thinking of a private joke and looking out into a distance as if remembering a long-forgotten memory, Steve answered, “no—no, I don’t think I will.”

Bracing himself to gather the old bones together, Steve stood up from the bench with a soft grunt. He’d lost track of how old he really was, but that didn’t stop him from feeling every one of his one hundred or so years upon him, at that moment. He hadn’t realized how much he’s missed his friends until they were welcoming him back. Turning from the lake, Steve’s eyes landed on Bucky, who was looking back at him knowingly and with nothing but kindness, and it made Steve’s old heart ache.

Steve wanted to let Bucky know that when and where he had gone, things had turned out differently. In another place and time, Steve was able to save Bucky, getting him out of HYDRA’s clutches and having him live next door with his _own_ wife. They’d been able to live out their dream lives. There were difficult days for both of them: Bucky had a lot of prisoner-of-war trauma to get through; and Steve, during moments when he was alone with nothing but his thoughts for company, always had the nagging memory of his old life and the friends he’s left behind.

And Tony. Steve _always_ thought about Tony, and if there was something he could’ve done differently for Tony to get to come home to his wife and daughter, after.

Steve didn’t know how he could have ever thought that he could move on after Tony’s sacrifice. Because if he couldn’t move on from the first time Thanos wrought catastrophe, then there was no way in hell he could move on now. Not when there was something he could do.

There was no saving this Bucky from the horrors brought about by HYDRA and the guilt from all the deaths dealt by the Winter Soldier. There was no saving Tony from wielding the Infinity Stones and dying because of it. But that didn’t mean that there was nothing that Steve could do for the friends that were so dear to him…

“Buck, I—” He began, tremulously, when he was within arm’s reach. Pain must have been shining out his eyes.

“Don’t give me that look, punk. I know the science,” Bucky interjected. “The doc did his best to explain things to me.” The brunet cocked his head towards where Professor Hulk stood, trying to be unobtrusive, and then smiled back at Steve wistfully.

“I thought I could—” Steve began to explain, his eyes growing hot and his voice breaking even more than it already was.

“What’s done is done, Steve… I’m just… _happy_ you found your way back to us—skinny, wrinkled ass and all,” joked Bucky.

“You only wish you could have _this_ ass when you’re my age,” Steve exclaimed, cheekily.

“What’re you saying? I’m _older_ than you, jerk,” Bucky said, bridging the final, small gap between them and tugging Steve into a fierce hug. “For a moment there, I thought you’d skipped out on me.” Bucky whispered, his emotions finally getting the better of his composure.

“I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal, or have _you_ forgotten?”

Bucky hummed in agreement, his mouth and eyes crinkling into a smile.

“Now, come on,” Steve bade with a tug at Bucky’s forearm before looking back at both Sam and Bruce with nods of acknowledgment and invitation. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Bruce finally spoke in question.

“Tony’s lakeside lodge,” Steve replied. He started to feel rejuvenated despite his aged bones. Steve had a good feeling about it. They had to hurry—make sure there were friendly and familiar faces to greet his friend upon his arrival. “We have a guest coming. Let’s welcome him home.”

==========

“How’s the rebuilding coming along?” Pepper Potts-Stark asked, finally breaking the comfortable intermittent periods of silence that would usually fall between them during these semi-regular check-ins and visits that Steve had taken to doing to see how she and Morgan were holding up.

“Shaping up nicely,” Steve replied. It was only just a little over three weeks since Tony’d passed. It wasn’t nearly long enough for any of their broken hearts to heal or their eyes to dry from losing both Nat and Tony. “It wouldn’t even be possible if—”

“ _Tony_ would’ve wanted it,” Pepper interrupted before Steve could keep blathering on awkwardly. “He had the compound repurposed and built, first and foremost, so that his friends—his _family_ —would always have a home. He’d have seen to it that the Avengers would _always_ have the support you will ever need, with or without any government agency in the picture.”

“Still…” Steve said, letting the rest go unspoken when he meant to say that it was just as likely for Pepper to completely denounce any association with the Avengers after her husband’s death and withdraw any support regardless of Tony’s wishes if she’d had any vindictive bone in her body. It was all well and good for what remained of the team that Pepper didn’t hold any grudges or blamed them for what happened to Tony. And for that, Steve, in particular, was thankful. He didn’t have any family apart from the team or a place he called home apart from the compound. “Thank you,” he said, thinking it best to be simple and straightforward about it.

Another interval of silence. Then, Pepper spoke, “you guys are my family now, too, you know.” She looked down on the half-empty glass of juice, cradled within her hands atop her lap. “I think Tony would want you to be in Morgan’s life. If he couldn’t be here, he would want the people he considered his family to be here in his stead. And I really would like it if Morgan could see what her dad was like from different eyes and not just mine, you know. You fought beside him—against him, even. You know— _knew_ —him in a different way than how I knew him, and Morgan… she would need all of those…different perspectives—different inputs—if she were to have a lasting idea of what kind of man her father was.”

If there was anything that could break Steve’s heart more than Peggy and what could have been, it was Morgan and the chance denied her to know firsthand how great her dad really was.

“It would be my pleasure to be in Morgan’s life, Pepper, as it would be an honor to get to tell her about her father,” Steve said, fighting back an onslaught of his own sentiments. “Tony and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but—” and at this Steve pursed his lips to keep his emotions in check, “Even when we fought, I’ve never not thought of him as a friend—a brother… And I…will never stop missing him.”

Silence. Pensive, this time.

“Will it be all right if I visit Morgan every Saturday?” Steve asked, hopeful. He would really like that. If he could see Tony’s daughter as often as he could and tell her about the crazy-smart, sarcastic but kind and generous person that her father was. It would be like Tony was still around. Because we could keep the loved ones we’ve lost alive in our joyous celebration of their memory.

Pepper smiled softly at that request. “Aren’t you, guys, also trying to reconstruct a new quantum tunnel to be able to return the Infinity Stones? I think Bruce told me about that. Can’t imagine you getting a lot of free time, what, with rebuilding the compound and making sure the Stones are returned to where and when they should be…”

“We’re a long way from being able to build a quantum tunnel in the compound in the scope it used to be without Rocket and Nebula. Bruce is considering the specs of a smaller—more portable—one to be temporarily built in the compound grounds, and, since I can’t be of much help in the science and engineering of it,” Steve relayed, turning his glass in his hand and watching the juice slosh around inside. “That means until the miniature quantum tunnel is ready for us to be able to return the Stones when and where they’re supposed to be, I can’t imagine doing anything better than getting to know Morgan and telling her what an absolute nerd her dad was.”

At that, Pepper actually chuckled, but, remembering something, segued, “by the way, about returning the Sto—” She didn’t get to finish, though, because it was at that moment that little Morgan came barreling out of the house, looking distraught over something. She immediately went and straddled Pepper’s lap, throwing her arms around her mother’s neck and burying her face in the older woman’s neck. “Hey, sweetheart. Hello—did you have a nice nap?”

“No, no, no…” Morgan whimpered, burrowing her face further and almost completely muffling her small voice. “I saw _Daddy_ , Mommy. I saw him in my sleep,” Morgan continued, beginning to full-on cry now, and it took nearly all of Steve’s willpower not to sob with the child. “He’s calling me. Bad men are chasing him and needs our help, Mommy… I miss…Daddy! I miss him…so much!” She wailed, hiccuping her sentiments in-between her tears.

Steve felt like pieces of his already broken heart were breaking again. In his mind’s eye, he could still see Tony’s desperate face when they talked at the compound’s driveway about keeping what he’s found at all costs. Tony had so much to lose, and he’d done the ultimate sacrifice. While Steve had _nothing_ to lose, and he was still there, looking at Tony’s widow and daughter, helplessly—powerlessly.

It was like the most twisted bastardization of poetic justice.

“It was just a nightmare, sweetheart. It happens because you’re always thinking of him, so you dream about him. But he’s not in trouble, don’t worry. Daddy’s in a good place. He’s in a place where there’s no pain, and he can play and build things all he wants,” Pepper patiently explained, her own eyes shining with unshed tears. Steve averted his eyes from the mother-daughter scene playing out in front of him, feeling like an outsider intruding in a moment he had no business being a party to.

“But how can it be a good place, when he’s not with us?” Morgan astutely said, pressing her cheek against Pepper’s shoulder and finally noticing Steve sitting there, like a deer caught in headlights. Morgan looked at him straight in the eye, unabashedly. As if asking Steve to make sense of that simple question himself—how _could_ it be believed that Tony Stark was in a good place when he couldn’t be with his family?!

“We can’t always be with Daddy, sweetheart. Remember before when Daddy went to the city to go meet someone, and you and I stayed here to play and garden? Sometimes, there are places Daddy goes to that he has to leave me and you, but it doesn’t mean he’s not in a good place,” Pepper tried her best to explain, blinking away the stray tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

“Daddy came back then!” Morgan protested. “But he’s not coming back anymore, is he?”

Steve had zero doubt that Morgan Stark was Tony Stark’s kid, all right. She had the same superpower of being able to say just the exact thing that would hit you right where it’d hurt.

Steve wanted to excuse himself to go bawl his eyes out—survivor’s guilt eating at him. But he stayed put. Because this wasn’t about him but about this little girl who would have to live the rest of her life without a father.

After Pepper was somewhat able to console Morgan, the little girl bravely extricated herself from faceplanting against her mother’s neck, wiped away the tear tracks from her cheeks and her hair from her face, and looked at Pepper square in the eye. “Mommy, what’s Unca Steve doing here?”

Steve nearly swallowed his tongue in surprise. Tony’s kid knew him. By name! He didn’t expect that because Steve’s only ever seen the little lady once before Tony’s memorial, when Tony had been too busy shooting their Time Heist idea into smithereens to make proper introductions. And then Steve rarely saw her since despite checking in as frequently as he could, but apparently Tony’s kid knew who Steve was!

Did Tony ever tell Morgan about him? Did Tony tell Morgan about him in anger? With heaps of resentment? Or maybe it was just like that movie and Tony told his kid that _‘Steve’_ meant the same thing as poop or something? Or maybe Tony told Morgan stories of only the good times that Steve and Tony had together? The good times may be few and far between but they were _good_. And they were precious.

“Why don’t you ask him?” Pepper urged the child, and then looked meaningfully at Steve as if wordlessly conveying, _‘you asked for this earlier; this is your chance. Don’t screw my kid up, Rogers, or I will end you.’_

“Are you here to play Tea Party with me and Mommy, Unca Steve?”

“I would love that, sweetheart,” Steve replied, chokingly. He held out his hand, palm up, toward Morgan, eager to touch the last connection he had with his friend. Steve couldn’t describe the happiness he felt when Morgan, with the shyest of smiles, placed her small hand in his; it was like being handed a gift.

“Now, why don’t you and Uncle Steve,” Pepper began, lifting Morgan off her lap and gently nudging her toward Steve, whose hand still cradled her small one, “play and Mommy will see about dinner?

“Steve, you _are_ staying for dinner, right?”

“Unca Steve is staying for dinner! And I can share with him Daddy’s favorite juice pops and he can tell me stories about Daddy and—,” Morgan started yammering, all shyness gone, making Steve giggle in amusement.

“Answering no is no longer an option, it seems,” observed Pepper with an amused smile of her own at her daughter’s antics.

“—me and Unca Steve can build a pillow fort in my room, and do sock puppets, and—”

“I’d love to stay for dinner and do all those things with you, little lady,” Steve answered, carrying Morgan into his arms and hugging her against his chest, happy to have been given the chance. Then, turning toward Tony’s widow, told her, “thank you, Pepper.”

“Keep her occupied, will you? Pasta OK?”

Steve nodded, turning towards the front lawns to carry Morgan to her little tent to play Tea Party with her, but he stopped when Pepper called after him again. “Oh, before I forget, Dr. Pym visited the other day and I think I must have mentioned the mission to return the Stones and he said you, guys, should get in touch with him. He’s willing to give you enough Pym Particles to accomplish what you need to do.”

Steve started to think, then, of the two extra vials of Pym Particles he’d stolen in 1970 that were burning holes in his lock box in the compound’s bunker that had been miraculously spared from Thanos’ attack. Looking at Morgan, who had so much of Tony in her twinkling brown eyes and her lopsided grin, Steve indeed knew what he needed to do.

==========

Steve shuffled to open the bedroom door while holding the tray laden with food. He had a feeling that Peggy would be up for some food today, that she would be ravenous and she would even manage to hold some of it down for a while. She’d been having a series of bad days lately that she’d called in sick to the office for the fifth straight day that Steve was certain Howard was going to come barging through their door pretty soon with the biggest bouquet of flowers and some homemade soup from Maria, demanding to know what on earth was wrong.

Steve had pulled it off.

He’d used up the last vial of his stolen Pym Particles that would’ve allowed him to go back to 2023 to travel to 1945 instead. Steve had made it to the Stork Club as they’d arranged, and he’d told Peggy everything before asking for her hand for that much-awaited dance that was years and years in coming.

Steve had dyed his hair and worn glasses, and introduced himself as a different person to his friends who were still mourning his supposed death— _Steve Rogers_ ’ death—aboard the Valkyrie. Peggy had gotten him a job at the Strategic Scientific Reserve where he worked as inconspicuously as possible trying to rid the organization of HYDRA infiltration as they transitioned from SSR to the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division or SHIELD, after the war.

A couple of years later, he had asked Peggy to marry him.

It wasn’t until the late 1950s, in that timeline, that Steve had found and gotten Bucky out of HYDRA’s clutches. He’d also told Bucky everything—when he was from and what things were like in his timestream of origin—making a grand total of _two_ people who knew the truth about him.

And they’d built a life—the three of them. Bucky met a great lady, Gail—a nurse, and married her while Steve and Peggy tried to start a family of their own.

After three miscarriages, however, it became clear to Steve that he and Peggy were never going to be parents. It was the Super Soldier Serum coursing through his veins. His Enhanced genetics combined with that of a healthy, baseline female’s prevented a fertile egg from making it through the first trimester. Like them, Bucky and Gail were childless as well…

At first, it felt like a personal failure on Steve’s part. It was _his_ fault that his Peggy was going to be denied the joys of motherhood that the Peggy from his timestream of origin enjoyed. He’d denied something to his Peggy all for the selfish reasons of wanting that dance. Of wanting that life that he never got to live.

That was quite the bump that challenged and nearly tore their marriage apart. But Peggy didn’t give up on him—on them.

“I don’t need to have children to be complete. I have us. I have this, and that’s all I’ll ever need. I didn’t fall in love with you because of the _potentiality_ of you as a father, or a grandfather—no. I fell in love with you because of the _actuality_ of who you are. And I’m choosing to keep loving you not because I keep seeing in you the father of my children. I choose to keep loving you because you’re my husband.

“I don’t need children to make our marriage work, Steve. I need _you_.”

Steve got through the self-blame with Peggy’s love and support. They’d gotten through that bump on the road and came out the other side all the better for it. He’d like to think they’d pull through this new challenge as well. He didn’t want to entertain the alternative.

Ten months ago, Peggy, aged 76, had been diagnosed with cancer. Steve was devastated but he tried his damnedest not to let Peggy know. Peggy, great gal that she was, took it all in stride and was confident that she could lick this illness, what with the new medical innovations that were constantly being churned out by the brightest minds of the world.

For his part, Steve didn’t let Peggy know of his fear and his helplessness. Steve still carried out like he always had: he would wake up in the morning and cook breakfast for both of them; if Peggy was feeling well, Steve would help her get ready to go to SHIELD; Steve would drive both of them to the base where they would stay for five hours at most just overseeing some concerns since neither of them could do field work anymore due to their age; Steve would drive them back home where he would cook dinner for both of them. Sometimes Peggy was feeling even well enough to slow dance in the living room or to curl up together to watch a movie. Some days, Steve would rub her back as she emptied the contents of her stomach down the toilet.

Peggy had tried chemotherapy for a while—those new types that didn’t result in hair loss but she stopped it because she noticed that she was often severely fatigued and irritable. She’d told Steve that she would rather go without medication instead of feeling that way all the time, especially since it was also taking a toll on Steve as her primary caregiver.

Steve tried to convince her to continue with the chemo, fearing that the cancer would get out of hand more quickly, but she would hear none of it, reasoning that she would much rather spend her remaining days with her usual optimism and grace than spend them crabbier than a bus driver in standstill traffic who badly needed to pee.

So Steve worried for her and dreaded the day that his Peggy was going to leave him all alone. He didn’t regret blowing by his time stamp and not returning to his timestream of origin—to his friends, no. Never. His life with Peggy was a long time coming, but the wait was worth it.

It wasn’t that he was expecting a _perfect_ life. It was just that there were some days that Steve couldn’t help but feel a bit resentful that, after everything he’d been through, fate was still not done throwing him curve balls.

But he never, not once, thought about finding a way to get back. For better or worse, he belonged there now. With his wife.

Gingerly setting the tray down on the bedside table, Steve then went to brush dark gray strands of hair off of Peggy’s face, softly rousing her from the uneasy sleep she had fallen into. His wife was still, by far, the most beautiful woman Steve had ever seen despite illness and age—age that he, himself, notwithstanding the Super Soldier Serum in his blood, was also beginning to show signs of.

If he didn’t consider the intervening 70 years of being asleep on ice, spending time in the new millennium with the Avengers and battling Thanos in 2023 before time traveling back to the ‘40s, he was, chronologically, 79 years old, and he was actually beginning to look his age. Graying hair, laugh lines, and age spots. He still looked younger than his real age though, and he was never sick and still healed from minor scrapes pretty quickly.

If only he could share the Serum with Peggy, he would. He would give anything to have his beloved wife hale and hearty. But he couldn’t. He was useless. It was because of the Serum that they couldn’t have children, and it was also because of the Serum that he was healthy while his wife was battling with, and slowly losing to, cancer; he hated it.

But bear with it, he must. He had learned to cope with quiet resignation because he loved Peggy, and if he would again be faced with the choice between going back to 2023 or living the life he has lived with Peggy, he would choose Peggy. Every time.

“Honey,” Steve whispered, still gently brushing hair off her forehead. “You up for some dinner?” Steve offered, smiling fondly at his wife who was slowly blinking away the sleep from her eyes.

“I’ll try,” Peggy answered, voice scratchy and face drawn. She looked doubtful about being able to keep the food down, but she was, at least, game.

Steve hand-fed her soup and crackers, pacing each bite so her stomach wouldn’t protest. He whispered assurances and told her commonplace stories about Bucky and Gail, about the grandchildren of their neighbors from across the street, about Mrs. Hurwitz’s poodle and Mr. Calloway’s new car. It warmed his heart to see her smile at his stories.

“Do you miss them?” Peggy asked, out of the blue, that Steve, for a moment, forgot what inane story it was they were talking about last.

“Do I miss whom?”

“Your friends—Sam, Bruce, Clint…the Avengers.”

Steve was tempted to tell Peggy that no, he didn’t miss them. That wasn’t his life anymore. That was another life that happened a long time ago or was yet to happen, depending on one’s perspective. But the truth was, he missed them sometimes. He thought about them whenever he found his mind wandering.

Mostly, he found his mind turning to Tony and Natasha. It was Tony who’d always badgered him to try getting a life outside of the Avengers, to maybe start a family. It was Nat who’d pestered him to date someone— _anyone_. But he never did.

It was only when he had one Pym Particle left that was meant to take him back after returning all the Infinity Stones that it really occurred to him:

Why not? Why _the hell_ not?

But on the flipside, he promised himself he was going to look out for Morgan. But he was here instead, selfishly chasing after his own happiness. He couldn’t be sure if the yearning offset the guilt. “Sometimes.” Steve decided to stick to the truth.

“You remember Howard’s kid, Tony?” It was Peggy’s turn to break the terse silence.

Steve gulped. He remembered not being able to know how he felt when he was first introduced to Peggy’s 4-year-old godson and Howard’s only son, Tony Stark. He stayed wide awake the night following that first meeting. The only thought running in his head was how much little Tony looked like a male version of Morgan Stark.

He saw Tony sporadically after that first time. God, he must be all grown up now—probably, what, 26, 27 years old? “Yeah, I remember Tony. Smart kid. Graduated Summa Cum Laude and has a boatload of doctorates, right?”

“Well, Tony volunteered to lead the expedition this year,” Peggy explained. She was talking about the frequent expeditions undertaken by SHIELD in cooperation with Stark Industries. To look for _him_. To look for Captain America in the Arctic waters and glaciers. They’d found the tesseract in the mid ‘50s. But no body, no Cap.

“And…he found it,” Peggy remarked, breath hitching. “Tony found the shield.”

“And _hi_ —” He was going to say _‘him’_ like it was somebody else. It _was_ somebody else. “The, uh, the Captain?”

“There was still no body,” confirmed Peggy, and Steve didn’t know if he was relieved or disquieted by that. “Howard said this might be it—the last expedition. He said he was thinking of stopping. He didn’t want any more arguments with his son. Tony volunteered to lead the expedition this year as a last-ditch effort, to make sure that no glacier was going to be left unturned, to satisfy Howard that if nothing turned up now, nothing was going to turn up anymore—that was that.”

“What did you say?”

“What _could_ I say? It wasn’t like it was my money they were spending looking for him,” Peggy murmured in reply. “Maybe this time, he isn’t meant to be found…”

“Perhaps,” Steve grudgingly agreed. “What will Howard do with the shield—donate it to a museum? Melt it down?”

With some effort, Peggy moved from leaning her back against the headboard to stooping over the side of the bed to get at something from under it. She produced a brown canvas bag and held it out toward Steve. Considering the bag’s dimensions, there was no mistaking what it contained. “Howard gave it to me because he thought I could use a memento of a man who had been dear to me,” answered Peggy. “And I’m giving it to you because it’s rightfully yours—”

“Pegs—”

“Don’t _Pegs_ me, Steve. I don’t need a memento of Captain America. I’ve got Steve Rogers right here with me; I’m _married_ to that Steve Rogers. What use do I have of it, anyway? And it’s not as if anybody else has any use for it—a man lost underneath tons of Arctic ice certainly doesn’t,” argued Peggy.

“Then what use do _I_ have of it? I’m not saving anyone from alien invasions in this bag of old bones,” Steve reasoned out, trying to be humorous about it but looking at the canvas bag as if it was an improvised explosive device that could go off at any time, blowing them all sky high.

It was then that Peggy opened the canvas bag and retrieved a metal storage tube from one of the inside pockets. She flipped the cap open and tipped it over and out came a single tube of red liquid.

Pym Particles.

“I’ve had this tube for some time now. I filched it from Hank soon after my diagnosis. I’ve been meaning to give this to you as a…failsafe of sorts,” admitted Peggy, avoiding Steve’s eyes. “I wanted to spare you from the pain of having to see me waste away. I saw how hard it was for you—blaming yourself, thinking it was because of you—that we couldn’t have children. I knew you were going to find ways to start blaming yourself again for my illness.

“I had it all planned out: I was going to give this to you; you will refuse to use it at first, but I was going to drive you away, make you hate me until you can’t stand me, and you will remember about this vial and jump at the chance to use this to go back,” explained Peggy, her voice beginning to tremble. “But I was selfish, Steve, I couldn’t do it. If I lost you, then I will not have died of cancer but from a broken heart. And now I’ve doomed us both. I’m so sorry. If I weren’t so weak and self-centered, then I could’ve made sure that you didn’t have to go through all this.” Peggy was crying now. She still tried to hide it behind a curtain of her graying hair but failed. Steve thought she looked so frail, so remorseful for what she thought she had doomed her husband to suffer.

“I wouldn’t have left you, honey, not even if you stuffed me inside a quantum suit and pressed the activation button yourself,” said Steve, enclosing Peggy in an embrace. “I would have still found a way to stay with you. I love you with all of my heart, Pegs, and I will _never_ leave you. We can triumph over anything as long as we’re together,” he reassured, swallowing down his own sobs. They would get through this; he was sure of it.

“No, we can’t, Steve. Not this time,” Peggy murmured, her face pressed against Steve’s collar. “Not even Captain America can cheat death.”

Squeezing his eyes shut and kissing Peggy’s temple, Steve wept silently. He wanted to argue with Peggy—why did she sound like the fight was lost already? They were still fighting the good fight, weren’t they? There was still hope. Howard would help; Tony would help. Medical science had new discoveries to prolong lives every damn day! Surely, they could find a way! But he didn’t want to demean Peggy’s suffering by telling her to hang in there and not to give up. All that he felt was within his power to do was to be there for her, to keep hoping for the best, for both of them.

“Promise me,” Peggy murmured in between her whimpers. Steve could feel her soft breaths against the exposed skin of his throat. “Promise me that when I’m gone, you will keep your head up, that you will go back to your friends and your world will keep on spinning. Promise me, Steve. Promise me…”

“I promise.”

==========

Hank Pym was pretty accommodating, notwithstanding his known falling out with Margaret Carter-led SHIELD and Howard Stark, whom Pym once accused of trying to steal his shrinking formula. Pym’s change of heart, Steve thought, must have been largely due to his grudging admiration of what Tony Stark had done to put an end to the threat brought by Thanos. The old scientist was only too happy to provide them with a container van’s worth of Pym Particles to restore the Infinity Stones to their rightful place in the timestream.

Steve had a different opinion.

“It’s too risky. Not after what happened to Thanos from 2014 getting his hands on some Pym Particles, reverse engineering it and using our own quantum tunnel to attack us,” Steve had reasoned, thinking about Nebula’s version of events that had led to the epic battle in the decimated grounds of the Avengers compound. “The prudent thing to do is to have just enough Pym Particles to do what needs to be done. No extras, no backup vials that might find their way into the hands of no-good people.”

So, the remaining Avengers hatched a plan again, and Dr. Pym provided them with 6 vials of Pym Particles: one for New Jersey in 1970 to replace the Space Stone; one for New York in 2012 to return the Mind and Time Stones; two to travel to Morag and then Vormir in 2014 to return the Power and Soul Stones, respectively; one for Asgard in 2013 to return Mjolnir and the Reality Stone; and one to return to June 2023.

And since they were pressed for both time and space for their equipment, having only built a miniature quantum tunnel on the outskirts of the compound that was already undergoing re-construction, and Bruce was more qualified to man the machine (in case something science-y went wrong) than run the mission himself, while Thor had already left with the Guardians to parts unknown, it was decided that _Steve_ was the best person to do it: he knew the Time Heist plan best; he was Enhanced and, therefore, could protect himself from any unexpected contingencies; and he had Mjolnir in his hand as a weapon. It was a no-brainer.

“You know if you want, I can come with you,” offered Sam. They were doing final equipment checks and last-minute instructions and requests.

“You’re a good man, Sam,” Steve praised with a small thankful smile. “This one’s on me though.”

Walking up to Bucky, Steve looked upon his best friend fondly. “Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back,” he cautioned, remembering that day, long ago, when it was Bucky’s turn to leave for his Army conscription.

Bucky smiled that familiar smile from when they were growing up in Brooklyn. “How can I?” He answered. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.” They breached the remaining distance to give each other a brisk but meaningful embrace. “Gonna miss you, buddy,” muttered Bucky, knowingly looking at Steve as if he knew something about what Steve intended to do after the mission was complete.

How could he, though? How could Bucky have any idea about what Steve was planning to do? Was Steve that obvious or was it because Bucky just knew him so well? “It’s gonna be OK, Buck,” assured Steve. Bucky gave another lopsided smile, and then Steve was climbing the steps to the quantum tunnel platform and activating the time-space GPS on the back of his left wrist.

The quantum suit enveloped him just as Sam asked, “how long is this gonna take?”

“For him, as long as he needs,” replied Bruce. “For us, 5 seconds.”

Steve turned around, bent down to retrieve Mjolnir and braced himself. “Ready, Cap? We’ll meet you back here, OK?” Bruce reminded him.

“You bet."

“Going quantum in 3, 2…” Bruce counted down. “1.”

And Steve was off. He followed the plan, returning the Stones one after another beginning with the Space Stone in 1970 and ending with the Reality Stone and Mjolnir in Asgard, circa 2013. It was after he had accomplished his mission that Steve, using the vial of Pym Particles that should’ve taken him back to 2023, manually plugged in a different location and date in 2023.

To Tony’s lakeside lodge. On the evening before Tony will have gone to the compound after having cracked the quantum tunnel and engineered a fully-functioning time-space GPS prototype.

Steve ended up on the front porch. He deactivated the time-space GPS and was once more garbed in the Captain America uniform that Tony had made for him. He was going to see his friend again, knowing what he knew about what Tony had done to save them all. He clenched his jaw and squared his shoulders before lifting his hand to knock on the screen door.

It was Tony, himself, who answered the door, looking like his usual carefree, self-assured self until it dawned on him who it was, and then he was stunned to find Steve Rogers on his front porch at this ungodly hour. “Cap… What, how—what are you doing here?” He asked, craning his neck to try to see the car that Steve presumably drove in. His tone was still somewhat clipped. Ah yes, this Tony was not yet the Tony that shook his hands and returned his shield whilst standing there in the Avengers compound driveway. This Tony was yet to find the resolve to not let resentment get the better of their friendship…

Despite that knowledge, Steve didn’t know what possessed him when he had every intention of keeping his cool, but before he could stop himself, he was surging towards Tony and seizing the slighter-built man into a bone-crushing hug.

“Wha—whoa, hey, _hey_ big fella. Easy on the goods there, buddy,” Tony warned, gingerly patting Steve back on the lower back. “Please tell me you’re not trying to hug me to know how big to dig the hole in my own backyard.”

Of course, Tony must think Steve was still bummed from being shot down a few days previously when they first brought the Time Heist idea to Tony, and that Steve must be there to try to convince him anew. Steve placed his hands on Tony’s shoulders and bore his eyes into those twinkling brown ones—so similar to Morgan’s. Apparently, missing your friend was more excruciating when you thought you would never see them again than when you were just fighting but you knew they where still around in the world, somewhere.

Before Steve could say anything though, Tony’s eyes were drawn to the device strapped around Steve’s left wrist: the time-space GPS. The time-space GPS the prototype of which Tony had just presumably engineered that day that Steve wasn’t supposed to know about yet…

“It really does work, doesn’t it?” Tony asked, quickly catching on. He looked smug and amused.

“Yeah it does,” confirmed Steve.

The brunet smiled brightly, rubbing his van dyke and jaw in self-satisfaction. “So, what exactly are you doing here? Is this a test run?”

Steve restrained himself from grimacing, not wanting to give Tony any idea about his fate. “Walk with me?” Steve requested.

Tony raised a finger to signal _‘hold that thought’_ and popped in back to the house only to holler a by-your-leave to his wife that he was just gonna take a sec to get some air while Steve patiently waited.

When they were already trudging on the lakeshore, Steve was trying practice what he was going to say to Tony in his head. But the latter beat him to the punch. “I don’t make it, do I?”

“Tony, I can’t—,” he started to say. Thankfully, he was interrupted by Tony. Because, for the life of him, he really didn’t. Know what to say. How _do_ you tell a person that they were going to die?

“—you don’t have to say anything,” Tony interjected with a sad smile on his classically handsome face. “It doesn’t take rocket science, Cap. If I made it, you wouldn’t be here talking to _me_ , now would you?”

Silence. “My wife? My daughter? How are they taking—how are they?” Tony asked haltingly, turning his back to Steve and facing the water.

“Coping,” Steve replied, standing beside Tony and similarly looking out towards the water. “Things could be better,” he continued with a contemplative shrug.

“Could they?” Tony was doubtful. “I must have had my reasons for doing what I’ve done—what I’m going to do… Man, that’s confusing,” he said, trying to make light of the situation. “Was it worth it though?”

That was another tough one. Was Tony’s sacrifice worth it? To them, maybe. But to Morgan who was going to have to grow up without a father? Not so much. “I don’t know. I guess I’m here to make sure that it is.”

With that, Steve reached out, took Tony’s hand and placed a vial of Pym Particles in it. It was one of the two extra vials that Steve had pinched from 1970 and never told a soul about, not even Pym himself.

“Don’t you need this to get back?” Tony asked, dumbfounded at what exactly it was Steve was offering him. He was yet to pocket the vial, as if he was still expecting Steve to snatch it back.

“I can get back,” the blond assured with a soft smile at his friend. He closed Tony’s hand around the vial and patted the closed fist once.

“Then why the hell aren’t you using this one to get yourself to the ‘40s to finally get a life, Rogers?” Tony demanded with narrowed eyes, disbelieving that Steve was putting him first over his own shot at finally getting together with the love of his life.

“’Cause your daughter needs her father more than I need to get a life,” remarked Steve. “Consider this my apology. I was wrong about you—about a lot of things, Tony. That day at the helicarrier, I insulted you, thinking I knew the kind of man you are just by watching a couple of footage. But I didn’t. I had no idea,” he humbly admitted. “I’m sorry, Tony.”

He thanked God for this _gift_ —this chance, this time—to be able to ask forgiveness and do something for his friend. Because if he couldn’t change things, he was gonna damn well make sure to _fix_ them. Somehow.

“Water over the dam, or under the bridge—or wherever the hell it’s supposed to be,” assured Tony with a dismissive gesture. If Steve didn’t know the man, he would think Tony was being mockingly glib about his apology. But he did know Tony. If he wanted to know what Tony really felt, his brown eyes would say it all. Right then, Tony’s brown eyes gleamed with a variety of emotions. “The future is more important than the past, Cap.”

Steve couldn’t agree more. “Tony,” the blond began, staring solemnly into his friend’s eyes. “Don’t forget this,” he said, enunciating a particular date and time. “Everything will be all right.”

Giving Tony one last, lingering embrace, Steve stepped away from his friend. Activating the quantum suit, he produced the last of his Pym Particles and delicately placed the vial in the slot on his side to power his last time jump.

“Cap!” Tony called after him in a rush before Steve could press the activation on the time-space GPS. “You told me the _when_ , but what’s the _where_?”

“Home,” Steve said with a small wink, and then he was gone.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony uses the Pym Particles that Steve had left him with to reunite with his friends, his wife, his daughter and the two other young people who mean the world to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events in this chapter all happened in the space of one day. It's pretty loaded with conversations I'd hoped EG would have but didn't, so for my own peace of mind, I wrote a fanfic just to have Tony have these conversations.
> 
> From this chapter onwards, the fic will be Tony-centric that won't focus on any romantic relationships but on the friendships and father-son/daughter relationships. 
> 
> There's mention of _Spider-Man: Far From Home_ but I don't how compliant this fanfic will be once that movie is out. So just take note of that y'all...
> 
> ConCrit welcome and please don't hesitate to point out any plot or SPaG issues so I can rectify them. Looking forward to your Kudos and Comments, my dear friends/fellow fans!
> 
> Enjoy! And have a terrific weekend ahead!  
> \---

Tony Stark, clad in a nanotech quantum suit that he’d designed on the fly, barely made a thud on the wooden floorboards of the porch of the Stark family’s lakeside lodge.

It was early afternoon, and the house was quiet. It wasn’t eerie-quiet but rather relaxing-quiet. And to someone like Tony who was almost always in motion, going from one engineering project to another, from one superheroing gig to the next, the lake took some getting used to. But his wife and daughter sure loved it here, so Tony learned to appreciate the unique benefits of his new living space.

He’d left his timeline of origin from this same location, in the dead of night and arrived in the early afternoon. If he didn’t know that he’d actually gone forward almost two months in the timestream, there was nothing disorientating at all about where he found himself standing.

He wanted to whip the screen door wide open and yell his daughter’s name, but he stopped himself. Steve didn’t have to say it, but Tony knew that, here and now, he was already supposed to be dead. And he didn’t know how his wife and his friends explained things to Morgan, but the last thing that Tony wanted was to confuse or scare his daughter.

Thankfully, he didn’t have long to wait because the soft whine of a quinjet’s repulsor-powered engine broke the tranquil silence. Tony watched a quinjet land not far from the driveway leading up to the lodge. It looked like the welcome wagon has arrived. But the group trudging up to his house wasn’t quite what he was expecting; it wasn’t even because it included a black hoodie-clad Hulk with his right arm in a sling that was big enough to fit a tree trunk, or two people who were supposed to have turned to ash five years ago, no.

It was because of the man leading the pack with purposeful strides, who was unmistakably Steve Rogers. But he got… _old_?! What the hell?! Now _that_ was disorientating since it was just a couple of hours ago that a robust, broad-shouldered poster boy of American freedom had handed him a vial of Pym Particles by the lakeshore and directed him to haul ass 48 days into the future. Was he missing something here?!

“Hello Tony,” the old man’s scratchy voice greeted. “Welcome home.”

Before Tony could respond with a greeting of his own or a quip about Cap _finally_ looking his age, Hulk practically bowled him over and swept him off his feet into a lung-collapsing embrace. “Oh my God, Tony!” If the circumstances had been different, a Hulk bawling like a big-ass baby would have been fucking funny, but after everything his friends had just presumably been through, Tony felt like making light of the situation was not the way to go.

“Hey there, jolly green,” gasped Tony through meaty green arms threatening to choke the breath out of his lungs. “I think it’s safe to say that hanging out in the gamma labs paid off, huh? Can you loosen up just a teeny, tiny bit—I think my chest cavity’s caving in—”

“—oh sorry! I’m so sorry. It’s just… It’s great to see you again, Tony,” Bruce said. It was good to see Bruce again although that was quite disconcerting, hearing the Hulk speak in Bruce’s voice and usual calm manner.

The last time Tony had seen Bruce was when Morgan was born. Bruce talked to Tony then about his plan to go back to the gamma labs and do something about his big, green problem for as long as it took. It never occurred to Tony that this was how Bruce planned to solve that problem. And he suddenly regretted not being as visible to his friends since Thanos happened in 2018.  It seemed as if a lot has happened these past five years. Or did these developments just transpire these past 48 days?  

Tony couldn’t even begin to imagine the last time Bruce had seen him last. Maybe when he di—

Nope, not going there…

When Bruce finally put him down, Tony finally turned to Steve. Jeez, he’d _really_ gotten old! He had wrinkles and age spots! But the twinkle in those blue eyes made more prominent by the tell-tale wetness of unshed tears was familiar. “Not getting emotional in your old age, are you, Cap?”

“I guess I just missed my friend,” Steve answered, ambling towards Tony and giving him another hearty hug. Tony should probably brace himself for more of these. “Glad you found your way back.” Steve said, looking right at him and fondly clapping him on both of his biceps.

“I had someone to guide me,” Tony answered with a soft smile that, for the first time since their conflict, wasn’t forced or tinged with anger or sadness.  “Thank you,” he mouthed.

That discreet exchange wasn’t lost on the rest of their present company when Sam Wilson snorted and shook his head, smile tinged with both amusement and wonder at the unique picture that Steve and Tony must paint, standing there together: one who was supposed to be dead and one who time had finally caught up with. “One day, you’ll be wanting to tell us how you did it.”

Looking over Steve’s shoulder, it was then that Tony noticed a canvas bag that could only contain what was undoubtedly the famed Captain America shield slung over Sam’s shoulder. So, it would seem that the shield that Tony’s father made for Captain America was going to have a new wielder. Sam saw where Tony’s attention was drawn and the former started fidgeting where he stood, suddenly apprehensive.

Steve, discerning the tension that befell their little group, turned to look behind him, at Sam, and then back at Tony before saying, “the world still needs Captain America. I thought I’d share the privilege. What do _you_ think?”

“It’s yours to give away, Steve,” Tony said, smiling through pursed lips. “But for the record? Good choice.” He made sure to speak loud enough for Sam to hear it, too. Sam was a loyal, steadfast, persevering and honorable man. He might not have Super Soldier Serum coursing through his veins; he might not be a perfect soldier, but he was a _good man_. Steve couldn’t have chosen a better successor.

Tony turned his eyes towards the last member of his welcome wagon: James Barnes. The man who had killed his parents. The man who currently looked like a cross between a caged lion and a deer in headlights, whose eyes were permanently downcast as if the ground held all the secrets of the universe. Tony was about to address the metal-armed brunet when the crash of a garden pot hitting the ground and a shocked half-squeal, half-gasp stole their attention.

“T—Tony?” 

They all turned towards the rear of the porch where Pepper stood, frozen, her hands over her mouth, her eyes round as saucers, glistening with pooling tears. Tony took one step. Two steps. Three steps closer to his wife and, unabashedly, leaped over the guardrail of the porch to land in front of her. They met halfway in an enthused embrace with them burrowing their faces in the crooks of each other’s necks, half-laughing and half-sobbing.

Pepper pushed away from the embrace to stare into his face as if disbelieving that he really was there. She, then, pressed her palms against his cheeks and peppered his face with butterfly kisses, murmuring, “oh my God, I’ve missed you so much,” over and over again.

“Where’s Morgan?” Tony asked when his wife finally managed to rein in her emotions.

“Upstairs. Building a pillow fort with Peter and Harley,” answered Pepper. “Those two have been spending a lot of time here since…” _Since you died_ , but she let the rest of it go unspoken.

Tony grinned fondly at that, finding it unusually heartwarming to hear that his daughter was spending time with the two other young people that Tony had ever given a high regard for in his entire life. Looking at his friends’ and his wife’s still emotional faces, however, Tony suddenly felt doubt for the first time since arriving there. “Do you think she will get scared to see me?” Tony asked, hesitant. How had they explained to Morgan what had happened to him? It will completely shatter his heart if his daughter was suddenly afraid or wary of him in the event that she’d been told that he was gone forever and he was never, ever coming back.

“She dreams of you every day,” Pepper said, chokingly. “She will be more excited and happy than scared to see her Daddy,” assured Pepper with a supportive bop to the tip of Tony’s nose and a feather-light peck on his cheek. “Come on…”

Pepper tugged on Tony’s forearm to urge him to climb back to the porch properly where the rest of their friends stood, after having just witnessed the teary-eyed reunion of the Stark couple. If Pepper was surprised to see a much older Steve standing there with a soft and knowing smile on his lined face, Tony didn’t notice it. He did notice his wife acknowledging Steve, Bruce, Sam and even Barnes, in turn, with warm smiles.

She gestured for Tony to _‘hang on one sec’_ and made him stand prominently at the very heart of the porch. Pepper then called, “Morgan! Petey! Harley! Can you, guys, come down here for a while? There’s someone here who wants to see you!”

“Hmm, last I checked I only have the one daughter,” joked Tony as more than one pair of feet pounded through wooden floorboards of the stairs, and snickers and garbled conversations suddenly reverberated throughout the house. He couldn’t deny, though, how much it filled him with delight to know that both Peter and Harley were very much like family. Steve, who was standing closest to him, hummed with both amusement and approval.

“Is it Cap—back from the mission? Or is it Bucky? What do you think, Morg?” That was Peter’s voice, trying to guess who it could be who was looking for them.

“Maybe Unca Bucky! With homemade ice cream like he promised.” That one was Morgan. Tony could see her through the screen door, going down the stairs, hand firmly clutched in a young man’s who could only be Harley Keener, with just her left foot pounding down the lower step instead of alternating her feet.

Shocked that Morgan seemed to know Barnes intimately, Tony turned and sought out the former POW’s gaze but the latter still refused to look at him. He made a mental note to ensure that he got to talk to Barnes later.

But, for now—

Tony’s heart seemed to stop when he saw his daughter’s face change from relaxed to surprised to full-on crying elatedly when she saw him, but everything was right in the world when his baby girl rushed into his arms without any hesitation, wrapping her short arms around his neck and holding on to him like she was never letting him go.

He could scarcely imagine the loss that his daughter, his wife and his friends had felt because in his mind, they were yet to happen, but the warmth and fervor of their embrace told him enough. He shouldn’t have doubted that his daughter would be anything but ecstatic to see him again.

Lifting Morgan off the ground and enfolding her in a tight hug, Tony was brought back to that very first moment when he held his newborn daughter in his arms. It was at that very first moment that it became clear to him that there was nothing he wouldn’t do—nothing he wouldn’t give—for the little bundle of joy in his arms.

He found himself crying into his daughter’s hair also. How dire must the circumstances have been for him to doom his 5-year-old daughter—his most beloved baby girl—to spend the rest of her life without a father? Biting his lower lip to stem the flow of his tears, he swore to himself to spend the rest of this new life making it up to his family.

“I knew you weren’t _not_ coming back,” Morgan hiccupped into his neck. “Because you _always_ came back. _Always_ ,” she sobbed, kissing him wetly all over his face and wrapping her arms around his neck. “I missed you so much, Daddy! _So much_ … Petey and Harley didn’t believe me, and now they gotta give me their juice pops every night until they leave here for school!”

“What have you, boys, been teaching my kid, huh?” Tony finally turned to the two teenagers, and it took nearly all of his composure not to snivel when he saw how emotionally-shredded Peter looked—eyes red-rimmed and wet. Harley seemed to have a better handle on his emotions but even he looked like the past couple weeks that he got to spend time with a miserable 5-year-old orphan had been akin to hell-on-earth. “Come over here, you two…”

And Tony told himself to not forget this, no matter what: the feeling of being hugged by the three young people who had ever mattered to him.

“How did—?” Peter started to ask, curious as to what made Tony’s return from the dead possible, staring at his mentor in awe.

“—It’s a long story,” Tony interjected. “Why don’t Cap and I try to explain it over dinner?” Tony invited, meaningfully roaming his gaze at everyone on that porch. Dinner with family seemed like a really good idea to celebrate his new life.

==========

Pepper called Happy and Rhodey to ask them to come over without telling them the great news. Tony, who was within earshot and yelling distance during the call, practically restrained himself from spilling the beans to two of his oldest friends. What motivated him to keep his trap shut was the mental image of noisy waterworks from both manly men once they found out that Tony was back from the great beyond. That, and he was momentarily distracted with the sight of Morgan laughing and playing with Barnes while the two shucked ears of corn for the grill.

While Pepper took care of making sure that Rhodey and Happy were going to be there, Sam called up all the States-side Avengers, retired or otherwise, and informed them that quinjets were on their way to fetch and take them back to the Starks’ lakeside lodge. Scott Lang, Hope Van Dyne, Clint and the Barton brood all confirmed that they were en route, no questions asked, while Wanda Maximoff, according to Sam, was in the Kamar-Taj in Nepal for mysterious reasons; T’Challa was, of course, back to ruling Wakanda; and the rest of their party—Thor, Carol, Nebula, Rocket and the other Guardians—were off-planet.

The Stark family and friends decided on outdoor barbecue for dinner. Sam and Bruce volunteered to fire up the grill; Barnes and Steve were in charge of corn and potatoes; Harley and Peter were supposed to prepare the steaks and meats; Pepper had the appetizer (garden salad) and the dessert (fresh fruit salad) front covered while Tony was supposed to keep Morgan occupied. He thought he had the easiest job because Morgan missed him so much, the child stuck to him like a barnacle to a ship’s underbelly. But when Sam and Bruce needed the assist to figure out Tony’s harebrained modifications to the grill, the latter had to let Morgan go for a while.

Tony absolutely didn’t see it coming that his daughter would make a beeline for Barnes. He was so astounded by the sight of Morgan being very comfortable with Barnes that yelling out to Happy and Rhodey over the phone to get their asses to the lodge ASAP completely passed him by.

“That’s… When did _that_ happen?” Tony asked softly, not directing his question at anyone, really. But since both Sam and Bruce were nearby, they couldn’t help but hear it and notice Tony looking towards the tableau that was Barnes and Morgan’s playfulness. Although Tony was given a preview of this earlier, the sight of it still threw him off.

But in a good way.

Bruce, clearing his throat, answered, “Pepper introduced all of us to your daughter during your memor—uh, when _we_ all went here for a… send-off.” Tony snorted at that. _Send-off_ was a nice, ambiguously optimistic way to put it when he knew perfectly well that what Big Green meant was _Tony’s memorial service_ after he’d gotten himself killed. Ignoring Tony’s reaction, Bruce continued, “And they just took to each other like bees to honey, I guess. It surprised the heck out of all of us, too. James would accompany Steve whenever he checked in with your girls, and later on, whenever James wasn’t with one of us or whenever we have no idea where he could’ve gone off to, we’d get a call from Pepper telling us that he was here—playing with Morgan and shooting the breeze with Peter and Harley.”

The information was more comforting than alarming despite Tony’s tumultuous and violent history with James Barnes. He was glad that his daughter had a lot of people in her corner during the time that Tony wasn’t there.

He thought to himself, again, that he _really_ needed to corner Barnes somehow. They had a lot to talk about between the two of them that they’d not had the opportunity to really get down to, what with Barnes hightailing it from the law and battling his conditioning in Wakanda before Vanishing during Thanos’ snap, and Tony dying in the battle that supposedly ensued on the occasion of the Snap’s reversal. They finally have the chance to clear the air between the two of them now, that Tony certainly wasn’t going to waste it by throwing blame around and holding grudges.

Not when Tony’s daughter seemed to really think the world of her _Uncle Bucky_.

They were in the middle of fixing up the long wooden table with meat and vegetables, hot off the grill, when Rhodey and Happy arrived and immediately zeroed in on the presence of their friend who was back from the grave. If Tony thought that a weeping Bruce in Hulk’s skin was both hilarious and upsetting in equal measure, it absolutely didn’t prepare him for a _wailing_ Happy.

Rhodey, for his part, tried to keep his military-honed composure, but in the end, the sight of Tony’s familiar _I-Can-See-Right-Through-You-Honey-Bear-You-Can’t-Fool-Me-Because-I-Know-For-a-Fact-You’re-a-Hair’s-Breath-Away-From-Crying-Your-Eyes-Out-Right-Now_ smile chipped at his façade; and he, too, broke down in manful tears with his arms snaked around his friend’s torso. “Don’t _ever_ do that to me again, you absolute ass-hat, you hear me?” Rhodey mumbled, forlornly.

“How else am I gonna keep you on your toes, Honey Bear?” Tony responded in jest just to diffuse the permeating grief that his friends had only begun to resign themselves to because of his death, the exact circumstances of which he had completely no interest in finding out about. What mattered to him was that he was there now; they were able to successfully reverse Thanos’ decimation; and his family made it through what they’d once feared were insurmountable odds.

It was while they were gearing up to take their places around the table for dinner and waiting for the rest of their friends that Tony noticed something. “By the way, where’s Nat?” He’d been meaning to ask that since he’d seen his welcome wagon arrive. He knew that Steve and Nat had gotten close after working to take down SHIELD together (so much so that Nat had turned turncoat and let Steve and Barnes escape in that hangar in Germany despite the threat of persecution, to the full extent of the law, care of Thaddeus Ross) and when they were on the run in the aftermath of Steve and Tony’s falling out.

It was as if those five words sucked all the newfound joy in their little gathering as a tense hush fell over the table. Tony didn’t have to be the genius that he was to tell that something was _very_ wrong. “Steve? Where’s Nat?” He repeated the question, more insistently that time. He had a feeling he should know what happened, but he didn’t.

To his mind, it was still fresh how only a few days ago, he saw Nat, Steve and Scott and tried to talk them out of Scott’s idea of a Time Heist; and then that same night he’d seen his picture with Peter while washing the dishes, and he thought he could give cracking the model another shot. When he _did_ crack the model, he got down to working on developing a prototype time-space GPS immediately. Then, Steve showed up from the future, bearing a vial of Pym Particles to guide him here—

What was going on here? Was he not the only casualty in the struggle to undo the havoc that Thanos had wrought? Nat couldn’t be, surely?! Tony had always thought Nat to be the toughest of them all that she was going to end up burying all of them under the ground and still be around to train the next generation of Avengers. Only _Nick Fury_ , himself, was hardier and more enduring.

“She’s gone, Tony.” It was Bruce who morosely answered him, recounting the circumstances of acquiring the Soul Stone for Tony’s benefit that he should definitely know something about, only he hadn’t made it past those events yet in his timeline of origin. This time shtick is really damn confusing—to be standing there listening to things that were yet to happen for him and have already happened at the same time.

Tony’s sadness at finding out about Natasha’s fate was momentarily forgotten when Scott, Hope and the Barton family arrived to join them. Glad tidings were exchanged and, for his part, Clint gave Tony a hearty embrace, negating any remaining ill feelings between them when Tony paid them a visit whilst imprisoned in the Raft, which like _every_ conflict they all seemed to have gotten through, they’d had to shove in the back burner to address one catastrophe or another.

Dinner meant listening to Steve telling them about going back in time to talk to and guide Tony back to them. The old man remained mum about his own adventures that made the years catch up to him, but it was obvious from the contentment shining out of his wrinkles-laced eyes that that life was everything he had hoped it would be. Too bad the revelry of being in the company of family and his being back from the dead couldn’t silence the disquiet in Tony’s mind after finding out what had happened to Natasha.

“Why me?” Tony, unable to tamp down on his curiosity any longer, asked Steve when the large group dispersed into numerous, little huddles of conversations to catch up, share inside jokes, or, in Morgan’s case, charm people into playing with her. “Why would you choose to get _me_ back and not Nat? I mean, ours was a relationship riddled with conflicts and disagreements—“

“—not all the time—“ Steve interjected with a wistful smile.

“—I gave you the cold shoulder for years, reproved you to within an inch of your dignity when I arrived from space, and then completely shot down your suggestion to try to get everyone back. If you don’t hate me yet, I really don’t understand why you don’t. When you could’ve gone back in time to get _Nat_ back instead of me,” said Tony.

“That’s true, I could’ve gotten Nat back,” admitted Steve. “I honestly thought I could when I went back to Vormir to return the Soul Stone. When I didn’t, I could’ve used up the extra Pym Particles I had to come get her. I missed her, yes. But I missed _you_ , too, Tony. If it was just about me, maybe it would’ve all come down to who it was between the two of you that I miss more. But it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about Nat or even about you,” Steve patiently explained. Nodding towards where Morgan was happily playing with and charming Scott and Hope, Steve remarked, “as I may have already told you before, it’s about _Morgan_ and making sure she doesn’t have to grow up without a father.

“I know that you and Nat were prepared to do whatever it took to defeat Thanos and put an end to his dispassionate slaughter, Tony, but your daughter—she didn’t ask for any of this, wasn’t prepared to lose you. She could barely understand where and why you’d gone when you weren’t around.

“And yeah, sure, we had our disagreements and conflicts in the past. That time after you just got back from space, you said some very nasty stuff—which were all _accurate_ , by the way. We’ve done pretty callous things and hurt each other, but those arguments aside, when it fell to me to make sure the Stones found their way back where they should be in the timestream, I’d made up my mind that I was coming to get _you_ , whatever happens; I never hesitated or doubted, and d’you know why?” Steve threw a question back at Tony, gently placing a reassuring hand on the brunet’s shoulder.

“Because your daughter needs you, and I know that, for your part, you would move heaven and hell if it means doing right by her,” came the answer. “Now, I may not know any better because I never had the opportunity to be a father, myself, but the way that kid talks about you, cries every damn day missing you and unashamedly declares how much she loves and adores you with all of her heart tell me one thing: you are a _good dad_ , Tony. To that kid, you’re the greatest. That’s why you’re here,” finished Steve, boring those knowing blue eyes into Tony’s brown ones.

After a beat of pregnant silence, Tony picked up the conversation again with a lighter air, saying, “you may yet come to regret that, Cap.” Steve chortled at that. Another beat. “Anyway, we’re getting her back—Nat. She’s family; she should be here with us. The world may yet have a need for Black Widow.”

“ _That_ would be one interesting conversation,” Steve said, chuckling under his breath and motioning towards his lined and leathery face. “My bones might just be too brittle for that encounter but, by all means, feel free to be the one to come get her.”

Tony watched Steve gingerly lean back on the wooden bench and contentedly close his eyes like he couldn’t be bothered with anything, like everything was right in the world. Tony mirrored the old man’s pose and leaned back on his own wooden recliner, watching the revelers before him and watching Steve from out of the corner of his eye. “So… you’ve already chosen your successor; you finally look out of place in a mosh pit. What does Steve Rogers have planned for the future? Don’t tell me you’re planning on inciting some kind of revolution in a nursing home, because I feel duty-bound to tell you that that’s not a good idea even though you’d probably get away with it,” teased Tony.

“I’m thinking of retiring in some place with an abundance of peace and quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of cities or even large towns. A place not too unlike this one, actually,” disclosed Steve, gesturing towards the surroundings of the Starks’ lodge. “You?”

“I’m hanging up the suit for good, this time,” definitively answered Tony with an even exhale. “Figured I ought to pass on the baton to the youngins. Oh and see that little lady over there?” Tony motioned his head towards where Morgan was still hamming it up with Scott and Hope, who were now joined by Peter, Harley, and Laura and Nate Barton. “I plan to spend the rest of my new life doing things right by her. Captain’s orders,” Tony stated with a lopsided grin thrown Steve’s way, before continuing, “hey, you know what? This, here, is a substantial tract of land. I can build you a cabin nearby, and you and I can retire together! What do you think? I promise to turn a blind eye if I see you hosting keggers for scantily-clad women in your house,” offered Tony with an over-the-top wink.

“I think being your neighbor goes against my objective for ‘peace and quiet’, Tony,” Steve replied with an amused eye roll. “But why don’t we keep that offer on the table and, who knows, the time might just come that I’ll take you up on that? I would love to spend more time with Morgan.”

“Though it seems I ought to think about clearing out a couple more rooms in the house,” pointed Tony out, nodding back at the trio of Morgan, Peter and Harley who were now playing clapping games while singing boisterously to the amusement of the rest of the hangers-on in their huddle.

“Ah yes,” Steve murmured, knowingly. “If I didn’t know better, I could swear those two boys are related to you by blood,” observed Steve, reaching for his half-full glass of beer from the adjacent table that he’d been nursing. “We would’ve been happy to have met Harley if the occasion wasn’t so somber when we did.”

Tony didn’t think it would get any less awkward to talk to his friends about his death and funeral. He had half a mind to make crude jokes about it, but he didn’t think it would sit well with his friends who’d had to suffer through the ordeal.

“Like meeting Peter had been any better,” snorted Tony, remembering that little standoff in the airport in Leipzig where the other Avengers had first been ‘introduced’ to Peter Parker as Spider-Man, whom Tony’d carted off to Germany in the guise of a Stark Industries internship. He looked on, affectionately, at the three kids.

A beat. “Those three kids adore you something fierce, you know,” Steve voiced his observation. “If I didn’t know anything else about you, Tony, that would be enough.”

==========

Tony hung back in the threshold of their kitchen, silently watching 21-year-old Harley Keener single-mindedly sort out the dishes to load the dishwasher. It tickled Tony immensely to reminisce that this very same young man was a runty, bullied but brilliant 10-year-old when Tony had first met him in the backwater town that was Rose Hill, Tennessee, following the attack of the custom-terror threat that was the Mandarin. Looking at his young friend now, Tony was nothing but proud of how far Harley had come.

“Need help?” Tony asked, breaking his silent observation.

Harley momentarily stopped what he was doing and met Tony’s gaze, a carefree smirk upon his lips. “Nah, I got this. Whenever Pete and I stay over since… Well, we’ve developed a routine of sorts. Pete helps Pepper prepare for meals and I take care of clean-up afterwards. We try to pick up after ourselves so as not to trouble her more for ‘adopting’ us for however long we stay over… I _would_ love some company though,” Harley trailed off, stealing a glance at Tony while rinsing dishes that would need to be stuck in the dishwasher later on.

That was Tony’s cue to get comfortable, leaning his hip against the edge of the kitchen counter beside the sink where Harley was still studiously rinsing dishes. Had Tony been the one rinsing dishes, he knew he wouldn’t be half as meticulous. “How’re you, Harl? How’s Maddy?” He asked, apropos of nothing.

Maddison Keener was, once upon a time, the proud owner of a limited edition, pink Dora-The-Explorer digital watch that Tony’d borrowed and subsequently replaced after it was wrecked by Aldrich Killian’s goons.

Not a lot of people knew this, except for Happy, Rhodey and Pepper, but Tony maintained an open though infrequent line of communication with the Keeners after the Mandarin debacle. He kept in touch even after he’d redecorated the Keeners’ barn, stocking it with all sorts of gadgets, engineering and science-y stuff for young Harley Keener to geek out over. That while he hadn’t been able to swing by Rose Hill as often as he would like, to check in, he called as often as he could and saw to it that Harley and Maddison Keener were well looked after.

Mrs. Keener kept him in the loop on the kids’ school activities and achievements until five years ago, in 2018, when Mrs. Keener turned up dead in a massive automobile accident on the occasion of Thanos’ Snap when drivers behind the wheel of their respective cars, while traversing the interstate, suddenly dissolved into ash; and the vehicles went out of control, running bystanders over—one of whom was Harley and Maddy’s mom.

The kids may have both survived the Snap but they became parentless—abandoned by their father and orphaned by their mother. So, Tony took it upon himself to look out for the Keener kids. When Tony’d found himself in dire straits, Harley had more than saved his life. Ensuring that the kids had everything they needed was a small price to pay for what Harley had done for him. Tony’s only regret was, since he didn’t want to have to uproot them thinking it was best for them to stay with their remaining blood relations and since he had a shitload of responsibilities with the Avengers and Stark Industries R&D, he managed to visit them only occasionally in Rose Hill.

Tony did manage to pop in for Harley’s high school graduation and his subsequent move to MIT to study Mechanical Engineering. The choice, while it pleased Tony to no end, didn’t really surprise him because he’d seen Harley’s potential early on.

The genius-billionaire wouldn’t really go so far as to consider himself the young man’s mentor, seeing as Harley pretty much fended for himself while Tony was just a sporadic and fleeting presence in the background; he was, nevertheless, proud of the man that his young friend had turned into.

“She was just here last weekend, actually. She has homecoming soon,” replied Harley, eyes still focused on what he was doing. “She’ll probably be more excited for that now when she hears that you’re back,” the young man said in a matter-of-fact tone. “She couldn’t be here for your… when she heard what happened, because she was on a school trip in the west coast, but she really likes going here with me whenever she can. She’s crazy about Morg,” Harley commented with a low chuckle.

Tony quirked an eyebrow at the unusual nickname, that he was not sure whether it was Harley or Peter who’d coined it, but he didn’t censure the young man for it. There was relative silence between them for several moments with only the gurgling of water from the tap in the background. Then, Harley spoke up again, “that was a really crazy-heroic thing you did, you know…”

“Not to downplay things? But I really wouldn’t know _anything_ about what it was that I _supposedly_ did,” admitted Tony, crossing his arms over his chest and shrugging noncommittally. “In my timeline of origin, it’s yet to happen. I’m still of two minds about it, to tell you the truth. I honestly don’t know if I ought to kick myself in the nuts or pat myself in the back for whatever the hell it was I did that saved a helluva lot of people _and_ got myself killed at the same time.” Tony said, animatedly gesturing with his hands while he talked. “And it’s not as if anything I do, at this point, can still change what’s already happened…”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” Harley said, finally turning his head to look from the plate he was rinsing in the sink squarely into Tony’s eyes. “You did what you had to do, and now you’re back here with us. Where you belong.” The kid said it so simply, so straightforwardly, with only a serene smile on his face that Tony felt that there was nothing else for him to do but to answer it with a contented smile of his own.

It was then that the dishwasher conveniently pinged to let them know that it was done with the first batch of dishes. Harley bent over to unload the machine and stick in a fresh batch of rinsed plates while Tony took care of putting away the clean ones in the kitchen cabinets. The two worked in companionable silence at least until Tony piped up again. “I’m sorry that what happened to your mom was not…undone like the others.”

“We had a body to bury,” said Harley, still busying himself with the remaining plates for loading in the dishwasher. “She didn’t Vanish like the others did. Don’t apologize for those you couldn’t save because, despite all the best intentions in the world, you can’t save everyone. You can only try and hope for the best.

“When Mom died, Maddy and I wouldn’t have known what to do with ourselves if you weren’t there. You were more of a father to us than our old man ever was, you know. So, there’s nothing to apologize for…

“You already risked— _gave_ —your life trying to save so many, Tony. That’s more than any one man could’ve ever done.”

When Harley had the dishwasher fully loaded up again, he finally paused and gave Tony his full attention again. “You should tell him, though.”

Looking at the young man quizzically, Tony asked, “Tell whom, what?”

“The deeper reason for your resolve to try to undo what Thanos had done,” Harley sagely answered, as if he couldn’t believe that Tony was being obtuse about it—deliberately or otherwise. He spun his head and nodded towards the nondescript framed photograph of Tony and Peter sat on the ledge beside the kitchen sink. “It wasn’t too hard to work it out,” Harley said with a smug smirk accompanied by an eye roll. “Everyone you ever cared one whit for was accounted for, and you had Morgan. You had a lucky break; you could’ve just…walked away. Except that _Peter_ didn’t make it. You’re gonna tell me it was _guilt_ that drove you because it was you who roped him into this—into the Avengers, and I’m gonna pretend that I believe that. But you and I both know the truth.” Harley called him out on it with an identical quirk of his own eyebrow.

“He told me that you gave him a hug—right there in a warzone, mid-battle… _A hug_ ,” pointed Harley out with a perceptive, thin-lipped grin. “Guilt may have been part of your reason, but your care and high regard for him clinched it. I got your number eleven years ago, Tony,” the young man kept on ribbing, snatching a dishrag from a hook on the wall to wipe his hands with. “You only pretend that you couldn’t be bothered to care about anything, because when you do, you couldn’t pretend to _not_ care if your life depended on it.

“He’s a great kid. You mean the world to him, and he deserves to know how much he means to you, too,” Harley advised, punctuating his statement with a series of fond pats to Tony’s shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re back, Tony,” Harley softly mouthed. The steady murmur of the dishwasher couldn’t hide the relief and gratitude lacing the quietly spoken words.

“So am I, bud. So am I.”

==========

Tony didn’t have long to wait for a chance to talk to Peter, one-on-one. The Stark patriarch found his young mentee lying, unmoving, beside a soundly sleeping Morgan and doubling as the little girl’s human full-body bolster. Hanging back in the threshold to Morgan’s room, Tony looked upon the scene, softly illuminated by the light from the hallway, with the most herculean of efforts to keep himself from clutching at his heart and going _‘Aaaaaaw!’_

Peter noticed him leaning against the doorjamb almost immediately. Tony didn’t know if it was because of Peter’s sharp senses or because his figure cast an obvious shadow against the floorboards. Craning his neck to look at Tony who was standing on the doorway, Peter gave him a thin-lipped smile and a barely-there nod of acknowledgement.

“You’re spoiling her, Pete,” observed Tony, wrestling with a grin that threatened to break his face.

“She gets nightmares, some nights.” And the rest of the teen’s statement—how the only way to keep the nightmares at bay was if Morgan hung on to Peter like an octopus—went unsaid. “I do, too, and this helps.” Peter motioned towards their sleeping arrangements with a small nod.

Tony finally entered the room and gingerly sat on the edge of the bed, on Peter’s side. “You and Harl are so good to her; thank you for caring for her like you would your own baby sister.”

“Morg is _awesome_. It’s been our pleasure, Mr. Stark,” murmured Peter, still endeavoring to keep still so as not to jostle the sleeping child.

“You’re not so bad yourself, kid,” said Tony, gently sweeping stray strands of Peter’s dark brown hair that had fallen over his eyes. It was a rare gesture that Tony could vaguely remember his own father doing to try to get him to sleep when he was still around Morgan’s age. Up ‘til now, he wasn’t sure if he’d dreamt it all up or if Howard had really been that loving towards him albeit rarely.

The room was illuminated enough for Tony to see tears glisten in Peter’s eyes and fall from the corners of those eyes. “I really, really… _really_ missed you, Sir. I thought… I will never see you again.”

“You missed me, but you still refer to me like I’m that strict-ass teacher whose class you would sooner shoot your head off than attend,” Tony teased him. “You wanna know a secret?”

Peter nodded through his tears.

“I missed you probably just as much as you missed me,” confessed Tony with a thoughtful smile. “I missed that bright-eyed enthusiasm to help others, that low-key genius, Spidey’s unsung altruism, even your corny sense of humor and dogged persistence. You remember when I said that I wanted you to be better?”

Peter, biting his lips between his teeth, nodded again.

“What you need to know, Pete, is that you _already are_ —you _always_ have been,” Tony said, brushing the hair off Peter’s forehead again. “And I guess I just wanted to be able to tell you that.”

“You almost didn’t.”

“I almost didn’t,” echoed Tony, twisting his body to face Peter and clasping his hands on the knee that he’d folded against the side of the bed. “That’s why I just had to have another crack at that purple ball sack…so I’d get the chance to tell you that, kid,”

Peter sniffed miserably, but he still remained immobile for Morgan’s benefit. “ _‘If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants’_. Isaac Newton said that. If I am better, Mr. Stark— _Tony_ —it is only because of the greatness of those who have come before me—those I look up to, those whose example I can only hope to emulate, those who carry me aloft, and elevate me. If I am better, then it’s because of you…

“I can’t remember…if I’ve told you this, but the first time I met you wasn’t when you went to our apartment, asking me to go to Germany with you,” revealed Peter, his glistening and red-rimmed eyes looking unabashedly straight into Tony’s. “The first time I met you was when you saved me during the drone attack at the Stark Expo. I had a toy Iron Man mask over my face and a round light strapped to my palm. I stared down a drone like what Iron Man would’ve done, and it would’ve blown me up sky high had you not landed in front of me and repulsored its face off. You told me, ‘nice work, kid’ before taking off again.” It was then that Peter’s eyes welled up with tears again. “I don’t know if you remember th—“

“I remember,” Tony interjected with a soft smile and chuckled, “so it would seem that you’ve always been destined to be a superhero...”

“I just wanted to be like you,” Peter said, repeating the exact same words the kid had told him on the rooftop after the ferry incident.

“All you need to be is _yourself_ , Petey,” the genius-and-former-superhero said, again tenderly brushing the dark brown bangs on the teen’s forehead. “And I promise that I’ll always be here for you.”

That promise made the lips on the teenager tremble and his already teary eyes to leak more. “I’d hug you right now if I could but—“ Peter cocked his head towards the child that clung to him like a vine wrapped around a tree.

Tony shook his head in amusement and decided to put the boy-turned-pillow out of his misery by helping him escape Morgan’s possessive clutches. They nudged and gently coaxed the child whilst still asleep to ease up on her hold on Peter until the latter, helped along by his flexibility and quick reflexes, was able to slide himself off the bed and free himself from Morgan’s clingy embrace.

The moment that the two were in the hallway without any risk of waking the child up, Peter surged forward and gave Tony the fiercest and warmest of hugs. “Thank you for coming back,” the young man murmured against his shoulder. “I lost my parents when I was Morg’s age and I lost Uncle Ben barely a decade later. And when I thought I’d lost you, too, I… I thought I might be _cursed_ or something, you know? That I’m cursed to lose everyone I’ve ever looked up to.”

Tony, still embracing the young man, repeatedly patted him on the back and then sneaked in a fond kiss on the younger man’s temple, much like what Jarvis used to do to comfort him when he was even younger than Peter’s age. “It’s going to be all right now, kid. I promise,” said Tony, gently breaking the embrace but cradling Peter’s tear-stained cheek on his palm.

They moved their catch-up conversation to the second floor den and sat side by side on the comfy couch with woven throws and down pillows.

“I’m glad that you and Harl are getting along swimmingly,” Tony expressed. “I mean, I’m kinda scared for myself, anticipating the pranks that you’d pull or the havoc I’m almost certain you boys would wreak, but right now, I’m more happy than terrified.”

“Harley is _so cool_!” Peter praised. “Did he tell you that he’s gonna be graduating from MIT soon? We talked about his thesis project on a Cryogenic Rocket Engine Hydrogen Fuel System and he’s GOAT!”

Tony’s eyebrows furrowed. Huh? Harley’s like a goat? What? “This should really alarm the eff out of me, because I don’t get that reference, kid.”

“Greatest of all time? G-O-A-T. GOAT.”

“Oh! Right.” Gen-Z lingo. Tony dreaded to think about the time when it’s Morgan’s _Gen-whatever-the-fuck-comes-after-Z-in-the-damn-alphabet-to-describe-the-even-younger-generation_ lingo he wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of.

“Anyway, Harley’s really cool. I’ve been meaning to introduce him to Ned one of these days,” Peter said, scratching at the side of his nose.

“What about _Maddy_ , though? You’ve met, right? Isn’t she _pretty awesome_ , too?” Tony asked, fishing for how his mentee might feel for another one of Tony’s unofficial wards who was around the same age as Peter. He wiggled his eyebrows mischievously at the younger man, trying to get him to take the hint.

Peter looked back at him with a skeptical expression on his face, catching on as Tony expected he would. “You’re not seriously playing matchmaker between _Maddy_ and me, are you, Mr. Stark? Because Harley will kick me seven ways to Sunday if I try to make a move on his _sister_!”

“Like _Spider-Man_ is not equipped to kick him right back—“

“Besides… ehrm,” Peter interrupted, suddenly gauche and blushing, “there’s this girl at school that I kinda like and I think she might like me back, too. So… Maddy’s really awesome, Mr. Stark, but I don’t think we’re right for each other at all.”

“How’s school, by the way?” The older man segued, suddenly all mentor-like. “Back to normal, I hope—now that everyone’s back. Hey—is that douche, _Flash_ , still bothering you?” Tony practically spat out the name with unmistakable vindictiveness. “Still need Iron Man for a fly-by at his house in the dead of night? Now _that_ will be awesome. He’s probably gonna shit his pants, though.”

“Don’t worry about it. I got him,” assured Peter with a fond chuckle at how protective Tony definitely sounded. “School’s OK. My friends and I are planning on coming to a school-supervised trip soon. It looks like we’re going to Europe—Italy, Spain thereabouts… to go to museums, learn about the history and the culture, to see old architecture and stuff…”

“That should be fun,” Tony remarked, leaning back against the back of the couch to get more comfortable than he already was. “Promise me you’ll keep your head down and your nose clean while you’re there?”

“Not asking me to text you _hourly_ updates about my whereabouts?” Peter joked, also leaning back on the couch and playfully elbowing Tony’s side.

“Nah,” came the answer complete with a dismissive gesture. “You’re _Spider-Man_. How much trouble are you planning to get yourself into? Full disclosure, though, the moment I get wind of something— _anything_ —out of the ordinary on that side of the planet while you’re there, I’m in a suit and hunting those mother- _Hubbards_ down,” Tony said with a playful elbow back at the young man.

“It’ll be OK—it’ll be fun,” assured Peter. “I would’ve wanted to go to _Africa_ instead, maybe swing by Wakanda and finally see Princess Shuri’s lab. But,” Peter said with a sad shrug. “The majority of the students coming on the trip are more interested for a jaunt in _Europe_. Well—bully for them.”

“You’ve met Princess Shuri, huh?”

“Yeah, Bucky introduced Harley and me to her during your… umm, when she and King T’Challa and General Okoye were here,” Peter answered, again skirting around the unfortunate occasion when those introductions were made. “We geeked out. Like you wouldn’t believe. It was hilariously awkward at first until it wasn’t. She’s so whip-smart, and the way she and Bucky described her lab in Wakanda just makes me want to ask them to adopt me for the summer or something.”

Tony gleaned two things from that statement: Peter, Harley and the genius-Princess Shuri had become fast friends because of Barnes; and Peter must also think highly of the former Sergeant or he wouldn’t be calling him by his informal moniker that Tony once thought was only reserved for Steve.

Tony was finding more and more reasons to have that much-needed chat with the former HYDRA asset.

“I’ll take you to Wakanda myself,” Tony guaranteed to Peter, making the latter beam. “I would want to see Princess Shuri’s lab as well.

“And speaking of labs, I heard the Compound’s being reconstructed. How’s the new lab coming along? We’re probably gonna have to redo some pending projects that got blown all to hell because of the attack. Hmm, I might just pop in one of these days to see what you’ve done with the place.”

With the change in topic, Peter suddenly seemed nervous and apprehensive again. “I don’t know if… you know. But they read your will, and in that will you left the lab in the care of Doctor Banner and me; you left most of your projects, the Spider-Man suits, some of your cars and a bequest of money— _so much money_ , Sir, more than I can spend in seven lifetimes—to me,” Peter informed him, eyes becoming round as saucers. “Why did you do that?”

“Because you’re _you_ , Pete,” answered Tony as if that explained everything. “And that lab, those projects, those things, that _money_ will be in good hands if they’re in yours. That’s why I left them to you.”

“You’ll be wanting them returned now that you’re back, I suppose.”

“No, I’m not taking back what I’ve already given,” insisted Tony. “I’m _retired_ , Pete. The lab in the Compound should be in the care of _Avengers_ who will make the most out of it, same with those projects—though I will want to help you and give you input in some of them. The Spider-Man suits have always been yours to use and tweak and improve on, depending on your need. The cars and money, too, are for you and May—to pay for college and have something to get the girls flocking to you,” reasoned the older man. “I can’t have my kid looking half-starved, destitute and stressed-out due to holding down _three_ jobs at once now, can I?”

Peter hummed at that, and the soft sound pervaded the den like a scream would have done. The young man moved to turn towards Tony and asked, “Can I… Can I hug you again?”

Tony chuckled good-naturedly at that and opened his arms in invitation which Peter was only too happy to accept. “Knock yourself out, kid.”

“This is really, _really_ nice, Tony,” Peter commented, tightening his arms around his mentor. “Thank you. For everything… especially for coming back.”

“Wouldn’t have missed this for the world, kid.”


End file.
